The Veins ring out with whistling.

Megan notices me first, startles a little, then giggles furiously, one hand over her mouth.

I raise an eyebrow, as if to ask her, Problem, miss? Meanwhile, the whistling intensifies further. I have Evan tucked against my side, where his horns are pressed into the bottom of my chin in a futile attempt to stop the song in my heart. It is unceasing. I am the bluebird in the morning, shaking its little tail at dawn. I finish out with the shrillest note I can manage, which I have used to call dogs before. Evan shifts under me. I'm not sure if this is because I've broken his inner ear or because I might have accidentally spit on him.

I should really ask him to co-organize a more formal saliva exchange program.

"Thank you," I inform the others, my voice dying out on the strange walls of the Veins. "I will be here all week, all month, and if we don't get our shit together, all year."

Evan claps halfheartedly.

"Out of all the small talents you could possibly have," Megan says.

"You sound like a Disney princess," agrees Evan. "How do you do it?"

"You have to have a song in your heart," I say, gesturing dramatically to my breastplate.

Evan could not roll his eyes harder if they pulled a full 360. I catch a glimmer of them as he draws himself up. "Truly, a man of many talents."

"Yeah," I say. "Two."
Harper walks in happier than I've seen her in weeks, robe twirling around her, and behind her, in an outfit whose swimsuit-like lines now resemble a faint heart, is Serena. Her dark mask is still so simple to look as if she's not trying, and the staff she has is still an unspecialized cylinder, which is not going to cut it. She walks like a woman entering a lion den, but this time, I'm halfway confident she'll make it out.

"Are you ready to do this?" asks Megan.

"Yes," Serena says.

"Really ready," Megan presses, her gaze and tone deep and firm.

"I don't expect you all to trust me again," Serena says, "Right away. I just know that this is what needs to be done, and I need you to know that I'm prepared to do it. People are hearing about this now. Our identities are likely to be safe from the public, but if we want to operate without police involvement, the time is running out."

"Even barring that, there's the matter of the safety of everyone involved to consider," I say. "All of those people have homes and lives that they're surrendering to this. We owe it to them-- if we're really going to consider ourselves 'heroes'-- to get them out of this."

Evan's arms are folded. Serena is still leaning on her staff. Megan takes my hand and squeezes it. She doesn't know, because she couldn't know, but I squeeze her hand back to reassure her that she understands perfectly.

"To war?" asks Megan.

She exits, and stops being Megan. I let fear run over my back like the rain, which is February-cold and bitter. Once we enter the building, past a meager guard, I stop feeling anything normal at all.

Gen seems impressed, even if she is silent as a ghost, by what we now call protocol. We swing around back, single shard of Diosite in hand, and begin the plunge into the deep with Umbra moderating our descent by a tendril of shadow drawn up through the broken ceiling of the elevator. The shrapnel at our feet is our new birthright. Everywhere we go, there is dust, broken red warning lights, little bits of machines, you name it. The whole building seems to draw back around us, like it's afraid of its own impending demise. Silly, but we've begun to learn that the thing is always more alive than we give it credit for. It can communicate, can't it? It can react to situations, can't it? Maintain homeostasis? Replicate? There are only so many criteria we use to define life. There's only so long you can claim more than a superficial difference between the firing of neurons and any kind of electric impulse.

That's the worst part of this place. It's fighting for its own survival. We usually know about half of what we're fighting for. It's a virus on people. We're a virus on it. Onyx swings around in the darkness and finds a sentry there that isn't made of metal, but he reacts almost the same way. Siren incapacitates the person before he has a chance.

The human has the right build. Broad shoulders, the long curve of my face, the strong chin.

"Are you alright?" asks Siren.

The man doesn't answer.

"Chief," calls Onyx. "Anyone awake in there, or have you been replaced by an automaton?"
"I'm impressed you know the word automaton," I admit.

"I know plenty of words. For instance, fuck you," Onyx says. "Siren. Can you--"

"Wait," I say.

"Wait on what?" asks Siren. She has her hands around the man's face-- I mean his mask. Just the mask. The man grabs her by the wrist and suddenly I have the sword out, moving the blade close to his arm. I nudge up his clothing with it. My dad has a few moles on his right arm. The man is shaking desperately. He says something, but we can barely hear it over the heat. We shouldn't be assaulting adults. We're kids. They shouldn't be lying down in front of us, scared. They shouldn't be afraid of anything. It sounds childish to say it aloud, but when the normal world settles back atop this one, it feels wrong. None of the rules apply down here. Nothing makes any kind of sense.

"Commander, officer, ensign, sir, Chief, you are shaking like a goddamn leaf. We're supposed to be making a good impression on Gen, not emulating her behavior."

"Onyx, we said we were going to be nice to Gen this time around. If you've forgotten what caused this whole debacle, I'd be happy to remind you," Umbra's voice is like silk. "We have floors to sweep. Can we please just take his mask off?"

The mask comes off. Siren rubs the head of a stranger. A face I might have seen in a crowd downtown emerges from the gloom, framed by patterns of stark red light. I exhale more forcefully than intended. Anthem is already flooding my body with some kind of hormone, hoping to drown the fear out. I'm grateful for it, but she should know that she can't make me stand up straight as she wants, no matter what she does.

"Next floor," I tell them.

The group follows me into the shadows, to the next elevator. Gen still hasn't done anything. She knows this. I can see her rubbing the pole with her thumb, looking pensive but primarily just bored. "You said there was a machine down there that's going to change everything," she says, at last. The elevator hitches and Umbra's shadows seize on a counterweight. The machine sighs. It knows it can't buck us. Once the disturbance pases, Gen continues, "That we're not fighting a war of attrition anymore. Soon, they stop baiting us out with sentries, and even if we have half the Diosite, they can convert an infinite amount of people."

"We wanted to ease you into this," Onyx says. "Congratulations! Even after you've returned, you're still being an impediment."

"Onyx," warns Siren. "Stop."
Onyx rolls his beautiful, stone-cold, dagger-sharp eyes. He moves a little closer to me. "Both of you. Both of you are off-kilter today."

I'm not going to answer him.

"Can we talk when we get home?" he asks. That's Evan.

I don't want to say 'no' to him. I bite my lip. The elevator lets us out. Umbra is exhausted.

That floor is empty.

The next floor is empty.

The next floor is empty.

The next floor is empty.

"They've been 'baiting us out' for months now," Umbra says in one of the silent hallways. "They have to know if they send a person at us, the person loses their Diosite. We've taken half their power. There's no reason for them to keep making the same mistake."

"Maybe they're less intelligent than we've been giving them credit for," suggests Onyx.

"No," Umbra insists. "No, no, no. That can't be it. It can't be that easy. The way it is now, it's almost set up for us. Why would anyone do that? What are they trying to accomplish?"

We take the next elevator.

"Do you know what machine learning is?" I ask.

"Vaguely," admits Gen.

"It's a machine that takes in massive quantities of information, synthesizes it, and eventually learns to do a task using that input," I say.

"We wouldn't provide enough information," Onyx says. "We've been down here forty times. Not thousands."

"We're not the only test subjects," I say. "I think it's using people, too."

"For what?" asks Siren.

"Growing?" suggests Umbra.

"Whatever's next," Onyx says. "Just knock it out first. Just work harder. Faster."

"That's exactly the wrong way to go about it," Gen says.

"Think of something better," I say. "Then we'll do that."

Gen walks out of the elevator first.

This is floor eight. We don't usually sweep top-to-bottom, since it wastes so much time, but Onyx is right. It's a good way for her to learn the ropes again. She can stand at the back, but if we put her at the front, she might hesitate more than we do, and for the wrong reasons. I can't let her go again. Suddenly I understand why Anthem is so paranoid, why she grips so hard.

I'm not fond of sympathizing with her.

Onyx clicks his fingers together to give us a little bit of light. There's something lurking around the corner. We all sense it at once, tense up, and when it draws closer, we feel the sweet honeyed thrill of the fight overtaking fear. Anthem must be trying to juice us up for this one. It's another person, but they're not wearing the usual blank workers' suits, and they're armed with machine parts.

A series of shots fire through the air. A wall of metal appears in the air before us, thin enough that it's already being dented through, but honestly, thank goodness for Gen.

"Long distance?" asks Onyx.

I don't want to say fall back.

Any ideas, Anthem?

It will not hold long. You are the one with the armor, Chief.

"I'm going to go for it," I say.

"What?" asks Siren, hoarsely.

"Cover the cannon. I want you to short it out," I tell her. "Gen, drop the shield!"
Bullets thunder against an even heavier shield like rain on a roof.

"Onyx?" I ask.

I don't even need to say anything to him. A shield of flame heats the metal. Umbra steps back. (Good call.) Siren douses the heated metal. Steam fills the room, so hot I can sense my skin burning. I step through the clouds, feeling intense pain as the steam rolls over my skin, but I might as well be covered by divine protection. The man falls backwards in a terrible crunch and does not move again. His skin is burned where I can see it. I can't tell if he's breathing.

I drop my sword and begin tearing off the metal with my hands. "Shit. Did we hurt him?"

"What? We didn't touch him."
"Shit," I say. "Shit." I can't touch him. He's lying so still. Did the electricity stop his heart? Is he dead? Is he alive? What do I do? I can't touch him.

"What are you doing?" asks Siren.

"I don't know," I say. "Is he alive?"
"You're right there," Onyx says. "Can you not tell?"

Shit shit shit shit shit. Siren puts her hands against the man's heart and says at last, "Still beating." One of these days we are going to kill someone. I haven't told the others yet but there's no way we could get off free.

"Someone take the mask off," I say.

"What?" asks Onyx. "You're right there."
"Someone else do it."
"Chief--"
"Do it."
Siren pops the mask off. It's Mr. Gray this time. Man must still be coming here. I feel my hands shake even harder. I lean down by his side. I think I'm still cursing to myself, under my breath, but then I realize I'm saying something coherent, it's just not my words. "It's nothing. We should keep going."
"Oh no. Not until you explain what's going on," Gen says.

"Onyx. Siren," I say.

Siren folds her arms. "No, you owe us an explanation too."

I close my eyes. This is insubordination of the highest order. Gross degree. My word is law. I'm fifteen. What am I even saying? "They got my dad," I say.

Siren puts a hand on my back. I can feel the heat of it through the metal. Why is my armor never armor? The point of it is to keep things out, but no matter what I do, it seems like things are always being let in.

"Sir," Siren says to Mr. Gray. He's not waking back up. "Can we leave him here? Ethically?"
"We need to go home," I say.

Gen is behind me, still clutching the pole.

I pat her on the back. "Good job with the shield. We might have died."

We get back into the Veins late because we got aggressed by giant robots. Siren and Onyx took care of them pretty handily, while Umbra got Gen and I through. Melee fighters. I don't know why Anthem thought we needed two. Actually, I don't know why Anthem thought we needed melee fighters. There had to be someone out there, who, deep in their heart, would have had whatever emotional capability it is that makes Evan and Megan what they are. Then again, I don't want to give up my slot. I don't even want to replace Serena with a stranger.

She sits in the Veins for a while afterwards. Evan's placed both masks on the table. We're lucky to get one on a good day. Most of the time, the place is just empty. It's not as much fun to endanger yourself without any reward. That's when it feels less like some super fantastical magic playhouse, made just for us, and more like a job.

"Are you alright?" asks Megan.

"I'm fine," insists Serena. "I just need to go soon, and I wasn't sure if we concluded or if brooding is an important part of the new routine. I have tutoring at five."

"You have a tutor?" asks Evan.

"I tutor," she says. "Math. Spanish. Latin."

Evan whistles. "Damn. I wish someone paid me to be good at math. If I remember correctly, only one of us got an A last quarter, right?"

"Are you good with kids?" she asks.

"No," Evan says.

"There you go," she says.

"Are we going to talk about the fact that Adam's dad got turned by the Delegation?" asks Harper.

"No, we aren't," I say. "That's an order."

"Adam," Megan insists.

"Please." They don't get to see me weak often. I regret every shaking second of the single syllable.

"I'm sorry," Harper says.

I look up towards the ceiling. "You guys should go."
"Same time tomorrow?" asks Serena.

"You're coming back?" Evan laughs. "Didn't you almost just get shot?"
Serena's hand twitches towards where a jeans pocket would be on her uniform. She makes eye contact with me, so that I know exactly what it is that keeps her here: narrative parallelism. "I can't run away from the problem forever." She turns to leave.

Evan's smiling. "Ser?"
"Evan, please."
"We're proud of you."

She doesn't smile back, but her eyebrows lift. Megan files out after her, to go to something with Amanda (but we'll talk about this later, she promises, and I expect a whole text wall), Harper has homework, and even Evan shoots me finger guns and leaves.

Anthem faces me in the Veins. Her face is still blank.

"Can you change the metal?" I ask.

"You wanted to be prone," Anthem says. "It responds to your desires. If I could do anything about it, I would have made you all significantly more useful."
"You could have chosen better people," I suggest.

"No, you're perfect," she says.

"Was that a compliment?"
"No."

I put my head in my hands. "Will he be alright afterwards?"

"Since when do you care about your family's well-being, Adam?"

"Shut up," I say. "Stop pretending you know anything about me. You don't. You don't know who I am, what I think, what I care about--"
"Your father will be fine," she says. "But I'd hurry."

Anthem knows how to keep a tight grip.

As a commander, I respect her.

As a human, I hate her.